Nursery rhymes, fables and traditional folk tales all share a close kinship with drunkenness. I mean, obviously, right? They reduce the complications of life to an appealing, elemental simplicity.

It’s funny. When you dig into the lyrics of a particular song, you might be stunned by what they say. For example, one of the sweetest-sounding songs we hear as a child is the nursery rhyme, ...

“Mary, Mary, quite contrary / How does your garden grow? / With silver bells and cockleshells / And pretty maids all in a row.” Ah, nursery rhymes! There was a time not so long ago when children ...

Nursery rhymes, including Humpty Dumpty and Old Mother Hubbard, may be passed off as fun, but Susan Ackroyd has found they often have hidden meanings.

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